Stakeholder Says Golf Needs a Better Grip On Its Game

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Golf, once a popular and growing recreation, is now in trouble as participation, monitored by the National Golf Foundation ( NGF ), has declined by millions of rounds over the past 10 years. This has caused publicized distress for many course operators, equipment suppliers and well known commercial stakeholders such as Nike, Adidas- Taylormade and Golfsmith, Inc. The reasons for this decline remain uncertain but Dr. Richard Ferris, President of Macro Golf Inc., says ttediouhat the long use of traditionally tapered, totally anti-ergonomically shaped golf grips is an actual, physical impediment to a consistently accurate golf swing and likely the hidden basis of golf's reputation with the contemporary public as a game too tedious to learn and too difficult to play. To improve this opinion, Dr. Ferris believes significant change in the way golf is taught and played must occur. He feels his company has patented a big part of that change in PowerStroke®, which he says is the most ergonomically shaped grip in golf and has been ruled as conforming by both the United States Golf Association (USGA) and The Royal & Ancient Golf Association (R&A), golf's governing organizations.

Grips

Grips

Dr. Ferris says that during a golf swing the fingers naturally tighten to impact on standard non-ergonomic grip shapes sequentially to become mid-swing "triggers" and "fulcrums" that automatically cause an unintentional levering of the golf club. This tightening, and disruptive levering, occurs most frequently in the downswing and with traditional grips requiring a "soft-hands" set-up swing manipulation to avoid. Fingers tightening to close more firmly on PowerStroke however, impact on its ergonomic shape all at once, simultaneously he says, with no such shot-altering trigger-fulcrum levering actions.

PowerStroke's ergonomic shape also increases wrist flex to allow a full tension-free arm/wrist/shaft extension on one plane at set-up/address to better keep the player on that same one plane, manipulation free, right through impact. Standard grips however automatically have much less wrist flexion and to avoid set-up forearm tension, force a two plane wrist angle at address, resulting in a more difficult to perform manipulated, multi-plane golf swing.

Dr. Ferris said the professional game has traditionally, and successfully, used anti-ergonomic grip shapes and the more complex Pro set multiplane swing and unavoidable spine angle timing manipulations that has come with them. This swing he said, apart from being difficult and taking years of effort to perfect and maintain, also often comes with great physical cost to the player. He maintains that the easier to learn and play one plane swing protocol, facilitated by ergonomic grips, is more appropriate for the game of almost all other golfers. Ordinary people he said, will begin to enjoy golf again but only if they are given a much better expectation of meeting the challenge taken. He has no doubt that Macro Golf's ergonomic PowerStroke golf grip and the simpler, more player friendly swing it facilitates, is among the surest and quickest ways to help bring that about